Silence Revisited
by CrazyKater
Summary: *Gen* Post Bloodbath, Hutch struggles with his partner's silence.


This was supposed to be about Starsky and his struggle after Bloodbath. However, Hutch got all angsty and made it all about him, I kinda liked that idea so I went with it. ;)

Please review : )

I don't like zoos. I didn't enjoy them as a child and I'm pretty sure that I hate them now. I was almost too late this time.

_Fucking abandoned zoo. _

I will never forget that scene or the level of dread I had, when I came up on the circle of knife wielding, black robed nut-jobs that surrounded my partner and that random woman.

It scared the shit out of me, and I guess you could say I lost my cool.

My reaction was a real Dirty Harry moment- or at least that's what Starsky would call it. _Shit_, I took out the whole crowd of Marcus's followers before the black and whites _even_ showed up.

Dobey gave me the strangest look when he verified the details in my report. He looked at me like I was superman; like there was no way I should have been able to take all those armed guys alone.

Police work is like that sometimes. There are just moments in this profession where impossible circumstances force you to do incredible things—remarkable things. It's happened before, and it _will_ happen again.

I was so _relieved _when I leaned over Starsky and he clung to my brown leather jacket. We just hung on to each other. He was shaking, and so was I.

_ "__Oh, Hutch."_

That was the refrain that Starsky had whispered at the time, in a quiet desperate tone, and my heart broke a little. I found myself wondering just what those people done to him.

_Some White Knight I turned out to be. I should have found him sooner. _

Starsky asked me what had taken me so long, and I was feeling guilty about not finding him sooner, so I took a jab at his 'nightgown'. I was relieved when Starsky laughed at my deflection, because if he could find humor in that, then he was going to be just fine.

Starsky continued laughing. And I laughed too... until the tone of _his_ laugher finally reached my ears. That was when I realized he wasn't laughing at my stupid joke; he was laughing to keep himself from _crying_.

I held him close to my chest and fought tears of my own. But then he did something that brought goosebumps to my skin.

"_Oh, Hutch."_

He whispered again. And then again, and again. In a quiet, insane sort of way, he repeated his mantra at least twenty times, before collapsing into another fit of laughter.

It was then that I started to wonder if I really _had _been too late.

Starsky was still laughing when EMT's loaded him into ambulance. They gave me a funny look when I crawled into the back to ride with my partner, but they didn't say anything to me.

Starsky's ridiculous giggles finally ebbed and he dissolved into a fit of deep irrational sobs. I felt helpless then. I didn't know what to do or what I could say to make him feel better. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed his hand, held it tightly, and whispered my own mantra over and over again.

_ "__It's okay. I found you. It's going to be alright now." _

Starsky didn't stop crying until we arrived at the hospital, and even then it was only because the doctor on call sedated him. The doctor then forced me out to the waiting room. He wanted 'privacy' while they ran test after test on my unconscious partner.

_God only knew what they were testing him for. _

The tension of the situation was almost too much to handle, and I found myself pacing. I cursed the doctor for forcing me to abandon my partner so soon. I should have been in there with Starsky, holding his hand and being strong for him.

Didn't they understand that I _needed _to be in there with him? That I _needed _to be strong for him, because at that moment he was incapable of being strong for himself, and I couldn't do that from a waiting room.

_He needs me. _

Starsky was heavily sedated when they finally let me see him again. Sleeping peacefully, he was curled up on his side. He looked like a little boy, with his relaxed facial features and wayward curls.

I swept my hand through his dark disheveled hair, just to prove to myself that he really was there.

_I had really found him, and he was safe. _

Starsky had been drugged. The doctor believed it was some sort of LSD concoction. _Shit_, no wonder he had been so out of it.

The new knowledge made me feel a little better, but then the doctor started saying terms like, "possible overdose" and "possibility of permanent brain damage", and I couldn't help but worry about Starsky's irrational behavior at the scene. What if his reaction wasn't just from the emotional trauma?

_Fucking zoo. Why didn't I figure that out? _

There were a lot more tests after that, and it would be two days before Starsky was conscious again.

Those two days are long. I stay next to Starsky's bed during all of this time, despite the protests from the nurses about visiting hours. There is no way I am leaving him.

_What if he needs me? _

With my partner unconscious, I am stuck in silence, and I quickly become a hostage to my own thoughts. A man shouldn't have that much quiet. It makes you contemplate things that are better left alone.

I will always struggle with overthinking things. That is my perpetual problem in life. Most days I do okay, but sometimes when I have too many quiet moments or in the darkness of night, I find that that I just can't let go of negative or traumatizing events. They tent to haunt me, even when I know should just be able to move on.

_This never should have happened. _

In the stillness of the hospital room I find myself analyzing every single 'what if' of this situation.

What if we wouldn't have dropped my car off at Earl's that morning?

What if Starsky hadn't left to go to the bathroom?

What if I had just gone with him?

_I should have found him sooner. _

Dobey and Huggy stop by a few times, but I am not very good company, and neither of them stay very long. I can't even remember a word they said to me.

I struggle with the silence, and I find myself missing the voice of my charismatic partner. Starsky is talker. Always has been and always will be. He talks about everything, and at that moment I just want him to be awake, so that we can talk about what happened.

It's selfish and I know that, but I can't help it. I need him to tell me that none of it was my fault, and that it was okay that I only came rushing in, in the nick of time, because in the end I had found him.

_I had saved him. _

I try to dismiss my anxiety about the situation, but I can't seem to let it go. So I start talking to my sleeping partner, and it helps a little.

I talk and I talk. I talk about current events and reminisce about academy days. I talk about the women we've dated, and the stupid things we've done.

I do NOT bring up Marcus. Or his goonies. Or old cases. Or anything that might serve as a reminder of how close I came to failing my partner.

"_I was so scared buddy." _

I find myself admitting. I am a little shocked when the words leave my mouth, but I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

_I just need to know you are going to be okay. _

I tell myself to enjoy the silence, because soon, and I mean **soon**, when Starsky wakes up, I won't have a moment of peace.

Pretty soon he'll be saying things like, _"Hey Blintz, waddya say we hit up a movie?"_ or "_Hey, Hutch, I could really go for a burrito." _And then, he'll start going on and on about that ridiculous car of his.

_Lord_, I should enjoy this silence while I have it.

But I am not. Not even a little bit, because Starsky's unconscious and he can't talk to me about what those freaks did to him.

Imagination is worse than reality, isn't that what people say? Except for in this situation I know that doesn't apply. Simon Marcus is a monster and I've seen the pictures of what his followers do to their hostages. I am haunted by what I don't know.

_"__Hey, buddy." _

Those were the words I say to Starsky, when he finally opens those blue eyes of his. I give him a smile and smooth back his hair. He smiles back and croaks out a, 'hey'.

I have to stop myself from immediately asking him for the details of his abduction, because I know that if Starsky wanted to talk about what happened he would. Starsky is direct when it comes to communicating. I am the one who had a tendency to get too thoughtful and stuck inside myself.

After all his test results come back normal, the doctor clears Starsky to be discharged, contingent that he visits with on call Psychologist prior to leaving. Starsky smiles at the doctor and agrees with a quiet, "okay" and for the first time I have trouble reading the expression on his face. I don't want Starsky to talk to some stranger about what he endured. I want him to talk to me.

_Please talk to me about what happened. _

Two hours later Starsky is discharged. I try asking him about his visit with the psychiatrist, but he just smiles at me and grasps my shoulders. His eyes have a familiar twinkle in them as he says, "there isn't anything to talk about, Partner. I'm fine. You found me and everything is going to be okay. Let it go."

His words should bring me some sort of comfort, but they don't. I silence my questions for now, not because I feel better about the situation, but because my partner looks normal, and he's acting like the same old Starsky.

_How the fuck can he be so normal? _

How can someone go through what he went through, be unconscious for two days, then wake up and be _fine_? It doesn't seem feasible. I don't feel fine and I wasn't even the one who was taken.

_I don't feel fine at all. _

On the way out of the hospital, Starsky is all smiles. Flirting with the nurses, and trying to get dates all the way to the car. I smile and play along, even though I don't fully believe the show he's putting on.

The whole ride home, he doesn't stop harassing me for how hard I had drove the Torino in his absence. He is adamant that there are new scratches in 'her', and he asks me if I went off-roading. I furiously deny doing so, and choose not to tell him about how I sped down the bumpy dirt roads or how I parked his 'baby' on the side of the steep weed covered field. No sense in digging myself a larger hole.

_I don't want to talk about the damn car, I want to talk about you. _

Starsky smirks and shakes his head. "Sure, ya didn't," he says, but the look in his eyes tells me that he knows. I don't have to tell him what I would have done or the places I would have gone to find him. He already knows.

_He knows how crazy I get when somebody hurts him. _

Despite the time spent in the hospital, Starsky is exhausted, and he spends the next few days sleeping and laying around his apartment.

I insist on staying on Starsky's couch, and he rolls his eyes at me, but I am thankful when he doesn't prevent me from doing it. I need to be close to him, just in case he needs me.

_Please talk to me. _

But Starsky doesn't end up needing me there, at least not as much as I needed myself to be there. He still hasn't said one single word about being held hostage, or what happened to him during the time we were separated.

But all my worry is in vain. Starsky is fine. He's jumped right back into his diet of root beer and pizza. He's sleeping fine, and he spends his days reading magazines or watching trash TV. Same old Starsky. He doesn't look at all like a man who was abducted by cult members and abused.

_How can on earth can you be okay?_

A week later, Starsky meets with the department psychiatrist for approval to return to active duty. I am more than a little shocked when he passes with flying colors. He gives me a big grin and I know he can't wait to get back to work.

Starsky is fine. The doctors say so. The department psych says so, and he says so. And that's when I realize, Starsky is fine, but I am not.


End file.
